In God's Name, page 21
Right, Janet thought. "Stephen, does Dad know I'm here?"
But there was no answer.
She was too cold to go back to sleep. She wasn’t sure how late it was, the cabin had no windows, just air circulation slots by the rafters. It was after sunset, or there would be some light coming in, she thought, but how long?
It was disorienting to be in the dark without any sense of time. If she’d not slept, she would have been able to at least guess the time. She was hungry, but then she hadn’t eaten all day. Probably 24 hours even. Thirsty too.
She used the toilet. Moved to the opposite corner and used some of the water to rinse her hands and wash her face. Probably should save it for drinking, she thought ruefully, but she felt better for being a bit cleaner.
She pulled off a chunk of bread. She chewed it slowly, savoring it. The valley women knew how to make bread. They should. Everything was made from scratch here, by her father’s decree. No mixes. She’d floundered at her aunt’s place when faced with things like cake mixes and Bisquick. Her aunt was devout, but she didn’t belong to one of the plain religions, much less one of the isolationist communities. Her aunt enjoyed all the modern conveniences, wore pants and makeup, and worked outside the home. And had a happy marriage with two kids. But her husband had just died, and both kids had families of their own, so she’d been happy to open her home up to her niece. A little more dismayed when it turned out there was going to be a baby.
Janet deliberately turned her mind off that path. Her aunt had died shortly before her mother’s death. At least she’d been able to go to her aunt’s funeral. She took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly, feeling the rage grow as it always did when she let herself think about the fact that her father had prohibited her from being aware of her mother’s ill health, her death, and her funeral. It wasn’t until Roberta had asked why she didn’t come home for it that she’d even known.
Let it go, she commanded herself. Let it go. There was so much she she’d let go over the years. Sometimes she wondered if there was enough left to even be considered a real person. She had work. A dog, a home and garden. Some friends, none particularly close. And work. She’d always had work.
But she’d let go of her family. Her roots. Her friends, her brothers, her son, her husband, sham though the marriage had been. She swallowed. She’d lost her mother, didn’t even get closure at a funeral. She’d lost her church, eventually her faith.
Work. She’d had her work. Work made sense. Work introduced her to all kinds of interesting people, interesting ideas. It satisfied her curious mind, magpie mind, she jeered to herself, because it chased after every shiny thing that crossed her path. Journalism, though, rewarded magpies. She’d gone to the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, resplendent in a long black gown, and hobnobbed with people who had the power to do great things. She’d interviewed the president. Met her heroes, like Helen Thomas, the great Associated Press reporter who had opened press conferences for decades, grilling five presidents on their mistakes and their achievements. She aspired to be like Helen Thomas. She was a good reporter. She knew it. And she hadn’t thought she’d ever leave D.C.
Then, the Examiner’s publisher asked her to come home and rescue the newspaper. It would be done in if something or someone didn’t turn it around, he told her. Flew out to D.C. just to have dinner and talk.
Newspapers were dying across the country. Very few cities still had two papers like Seattle. Seattle had had three, but Hearst had closed the Seattle Post Intelligencer because it had ceased to produce double-digit profit margins. Chains did things like that. It was no surprise that both remaining newspapers were family owned—the Seattle Times, owned by the Blethen family, and the Examiner, owned by the Thompsons, of whom the current publisher was the third generation to run it. He was determined he would not be the last. But even with family backing him, there was only so long they could lose money with no end in sight.
“We can weather a downturn,” Mike Thompson told her that evening. “We have weathered them before. But this isn’t a recession like 2009. Or 1987. This is the way things are going to be forever. No newspaper can survive if they don’t figure out how to change with the times.”
“Why me?” she’d asked as she sipped expensive red wine.
“I’m building a team,” he said. “An ad man who knows what he’s doing in the new markets of the internet. A managing editor who is willing to come aboard if the conditions are right.”
He hesitated. “One of his conditions is that you come back and run the newsroom as news editor.”
“What? Why me?”
“He told me that people trust you. Sources trust you. Other journalists trust you. And the readers trust you. We did a reader poll. You have the highest name recognition and credibility of anyone on staff. Anyone in Seattle, actually, and there are some fine journalists at the Times, and the stations. He thinks that’s essential to build a brand that readers trust and will be loyal to.”
Janet had pondered his words for a week. She considered Seattle home, although she really had no desire to return there. No reporter would leave D.C. if they had a choice. On the other hand, the Examiner had hired her fresh out of college. Given her a chance to prove herself, sent her to the D.C. bureau. She was loyal, she admitted. The paper deserved it. And the pragmatic voice in her head pointed out that if the paper folded, she’d be leaving D.C. anyway. And without a job, staying in D.C. would probably mean leaving journalism, to work at one of the myriad non-profits, lobbyists, and government agencies that hired journalists. She’d get hired. But she wouldn’t be reporter anymore.
Being a reporter was too central to who she was, she had decided. And the idea of molding a newsroom to suit her notions of what a newspaper should be appealed to her. So, she had told her publisher yes, and headed home. Settling back into Seattle had been easy. She had rented, then bought her house. Renewed friendships from college, and her days before D.C. Even celebrated holidays with her cousins.
She’d tracked down Eli about a month after she got back. He had been shy. Glad to see her, she thought, but... disconnected. As if he remembered her, but not as his wife. As a childhood sweetheart, perhaps. So she let him be. But she kept Andrews as her name—she had no desire to carry her father’s name—and she didn’t file divorce papers. If she met someone? She’d met more than one man, actually. But trust issues. She snorted. She’d done some therapy in her mid-20s. And it had helped, no doubt about it. But healing was different.
Especially if they really were out to get you.
She snorted again, and it made her choke. She was still coughing when she heard someone at the door.
“Who is it?” she asked hoarsely.
The door opened. Janet scrambled to her feet.
“It’s OK,” said a soft female voice.
Janet didn’t recognize it. Sounded too young. “Who are you?”
“Naomi. Naomi Welch,” she said. “My brother, John Jr., is here, so please don’t try to escape.”
John’s kids from his first marriage. She remembered them vaguely. They’d be in their mid-20s now. Surprising Naomi wasn’t married. But then John wouldn’t want to give up his housekeeper. Jesus, she thought. I hope that’s all he’s made her do. The world was an ugly place, and she’d seen a lot of the ugliness as a reporter. The ugliness didn’t pass by Christian homes either. She set that thought aside.
“I won’t try to leave,” she said. “Why are you here?”
“Oh!” Naomi held out something in her hands. “I brought you dinner.”
“Thank you,” Janet said, taking the warm dish from her hands. “That was thoughtful.”
“Sure, thoughtful,” a surly male voice said. John Jr, she presumed. “Dad told her to, and she did it. Just like you will.”
“John!” Naomi said, sounding a bit scandalized and a bit frightened.
Janet rolled her eyes. She looked at the plate: chicken, more bread, sliced tomatoes, homemade French fries. Things she wouldn’t need utensils to eat. Someone thought ahead.
“And water,” Naomi said, setting another jug of water inside the door.
“Time for us to go,” John Jr. said. He pulled his sister away from the door, shut it, and padlocked it again.
“Thank you,” Janet called out to them. “Wait! Can you bring me a blanket? It’s colder here than I’m used to.”
“I’ll ask,” Naomi said, just loud enough to be heard.
Janet rubbed her arms for warmth. It was as much psychological as real, she knew. This whole situation chilled her to the bone. John Welch would be coming for her.
She ate the chicken. It was good, more flavorful than the store-bought stuff. She’d forgotten how good buttermilk chicken could taste. Raising chickens had been one of her chores growing up—as it was for most of the little girls. Feed them, water them. And damn, they were stupid. Drown in their own water if you didn’t watch them. Not as bad as turkeys. Nothing was as stupid as a turkey.
Butchering chickens was women’s work as well. Grab one, swing it until its neck broke, hand it to the next woman who would use an ax to chop its head off. And they really did flip around like the saying said. Then the next woman would dunk it in boiling water, set it on a low table and the girls would pluck the feathers. It was hot work. Another woman would then take the plucked chickens, gut them and clean them, and finally a woman would cut them up into pieces, drumsticks, thighs, wings, breasts, and back.
Chicken and dumplings were always served for dinner on butchering day. Women did that cooking too.
Labor was divided in Jehovah’s Valley: men did the work that required machines, and women did everything else. Janet used to joke she wouldn’t mind being a farmer, but being a farmer’s wife was too hard work.
She took another bite of chicken. Thinking about butchering chickens made her think of Mac. He’d told her once of a drill instructor who had bit a chicken’s head off to prove some point. Mac was a city slicker through and through. He’d not taken it well when she told him how to kill a chicken. Bite a head off indeed.
She sighed. Come on Mac. Get here soon, OK?
She had no doubt he would figure it out and come for her. Mac had decided she was one of his...people, she guessed was as good a word as any. He took care of his own.
She just had to stay alive until he got here.
She finished her meal. Drank more water. Used the commode.
Not wanting to think more about the past, she sang softly to herself.
“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.”
Then sang it louder.
Then Amazing Grace. Louder yet. She didn’t have the best voice in the world. But she could sing loud enough to wake the chickens, her dad had said.
So she sang.
Turned out she remembered quite a few hymns and praise songs from her youth.
And she could still sing them loudly.
Paula Brandt was washing the dishes after supper when she heard the hymns from the Penitent Cabin. The kitchen window was open above the sink. She paused to listen and smiled. No matter how many times she heard Amazing Grace it brought tears to her eyes. Such a beautiful song.
“Stephen?” she called to the front room. “Who’s staying in the Penitent Cabin tonight?”
“What?” He came into the kitchen. Heard the music and swallowed.
“Stephen?” Paula asked.
He let out a big sigh. “Janet.”
“Who?” She said puzzled, running through all of the community members in her head.
“My sister.”
“Janet? She’s back? What is she doing up there? Why isn’t she staying with us? That’s no place for a guest! Stephen, what were you thinking?”
He was silent. And she turned away from the window and looked at him. He looked away.
“Stephen?”
“She didn’t come back willingly,” he whispered. Ashamed. “John had her kidnapped and brought here.”
“He what?” She lowered her voice, as Stephen made shushing motions. “Does your father know?”
Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t tell him. I’m not sure....”
Paula frowned. Not sure if it would kill him, she thought. She was a nurse. She knew how precariously he was holding on to life. Waiting, she thought, remembering last week’s sermon and the conversation she’d listened to between him and the writer.
Or was he not sure whether the Reverend was a party to the kidnapping?
“You go get her, and bring her down here,” she said firmly. More firmly than she really felt. It felt scary to think about defying John Welch. And if her father-in-law knew? “We’ll put her up as is befitting our sister.”
Stephen shook his head. “I can’t. It’s padlocked. I don’t have the key, and the chain is too big for anything I have to cut through. Don’t think I didn’t think that. Even if I got her out, no one has keys to vehicles to get her out of here. And...” He stopped.
There were steps at the back door. A light tap. A girl’s head poked in.
“Naomi?” Paula said. “What do you need, girl?”
Naomi slipped into the kitchen. Naomi was a small, slight girl, as if her need to be unobserved had determined her body size. Although she was 24, she looked like she had barely entered puberty. Her hair was wispy, a light brown, and her eyes were only a shade darker than her hair. She wore a loose sweater over a long skirt, both too big for her. It contributed to her child-like appearance. Not for the first time, Paula wondered if it was deliberate camouflage or something instinctive. Her mind shied away from the obvious question of what—or who—she was hiding from?
Naomi’s eyes darted around. She shied away from Stephen as she did with all men, although Stephen was never anything but gentle with her. It broke Paula’s heart. She’d tried to get her to go to Northwest Nazarene University as many of her peers had done, but she wouldn’t go. Her father and her brother needed her; she’d said.
“The woman in the cabin? Who is she?” Naomi asked nervously.
“What do you know?” Stephen asked. Paula shook her head at him, warning. He subsided.
“Naomi? It’s OK. What about her?”
“Dad is mad about something. He had me take dinner out to her. But he made John go with me. Told John to take a rifle and to stay back, that she was dangerous. But....” Then she swallowed. “I should go.”
“No, stay. Would you like some tea?” Paula didn’t wait for an answer, put the kettle on. “So you took her dinner?”
Naomi hesitated, then nodded and sat at the kitchen table. She’d spent a lot of time at that table over the years. This had always been the place she’d fled to. And Paula knew the kitchen was her favorite spot. All kitchens were, or should be, the center of a home. The house was made of rough-cut lumber, but over the years, Stephen had improved upon the interior. The wood walls were planed smooth, the windowsills deep enough to grow herbs on them. The floor now had black and white vinyl tiles forming a checkerboard, not expensive, but Paula loved it. The cabinets were painted a deep, cheerful blue; the walls were yellow. The tablecloth had flowers on it in the same blue color.
She watched as Naomi slowly relaxed in its comforting familiarity. It had been here that Naomi had done most of her homework. Here she’d come when she’d started her period, terrified, because no one had explained what to expect. Paula still felt guilty about that. She should have prepared the girl. Anyone with two cents worth of brains would realize her father wouldn’t.
I should have done more, Paula thought, as she always thought. She put tea bags out for Naomi to choose from, with a small pot of honey.
“Same as I fixed for us, buttermilk chicken, tomatoes, potatoes,” she said with pride. She was a good cook. She’d learned a lot of it in this kitchen. “Dad said no utensils. Why would he say that?”
Paula poured hot water into her cup, made a second cup for herself, and gestured toward Stephen. He shook his head, sitting quietly at the table. Giving Naomi the space she needed.
“I don’t know,” Paula said, sitting down beside her. “And then?”
“I couldn’t see her very well. John had the light, but she seemed nice. And familiar. Like I should know her. But John wouldn’t let me talk to her.” She sipped her tea. She’d chosen chamomile, Paula saw. Not good: it meant she was more upset than she was letting on.
“She asked for a blanket,” Naomi went on. “But when I told John we should get one and take it up to her, he laughed. He said Dad would take one to her if she needed it.”
Naomi blew on her tea. And didn’t look up. “I think Dad...” she stopped. “I don’t think she should go without a blanket.”
Paula looked at Stephen. The kitchen was silent. The hymn from the cabin was Just As I Am Without One Plea.
“Yes,” Paula said slowly. “She needs a blanket.”
Paula had grown up with Janet, of course, even though Janet was three years older. They’d done chores together, gone to school in town together, sang in the church choir. And then she was gone. Although there were lots of rumors, no one was talking. Preacher literally looked like the wrath of God. He and John Welch had shouting matches. Sister Mary was in tears. The next year, Stephen had gone away to Northwest Nazarene University to major in agricultural engineering. She’d followed the year after that, to major in nursing. It was at NNU in Idaho that the two of them became more than childhood friends. One night, he’d told her the whole story.
“Why would your father do something like that?” Paula had exclaimed. She wasn’t completely clear on what John had done to her. Oh, she knew how sex worked. She’d grown up around animals, and Sister Mary had made sure to use the animals as teaching lessons. She was studying to be a nurse and there was even more material about sex and pregnancy. But what would it mean if one person forced himself on you? Even the thought of it frightened her.
But Brother John had always frightened her and her friends. Really, only Janet had babysat for him after his wife died. And Paula realized she wasn’t sure exactly how she had died. She swallowed. Not something they would have discussed with her when she was 10 or 12, and by the time she was old enough to be a part of adult conversations, it was old news. But the mothers saw to it that the teenage girls were not around Brother John unchaperoned. Janet was deemed safe, because of her father.
